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Eglinton West a glaring flaw in John Tory’s SmartTrack plan

If Eglinton Crosstown LRT was built as planned, it would solve Eglinton West problem and let John Tory's SmartTrack stay on track.

During the municipal election Mayor John Tory advocated his SmartTrack plan, which uses existing rail lines in Toronto and adds 22 new transit stops in the next seven years. But SmartTrack has a glaring flaw on Eglinton West because the right-of-way no longer exists, writes John Barber. (Richard Lautens / Toronto Star file photo)

By John Barber

Sun., Feb. 15, 2015

Every folly begins with a Cassandra accurately predicting the outcome — and totally being ignored. This week in Toronto, she took the form of Ward 14 Councillor Gord Perks, whose sensible motion to fix the one glaring flaw in Mayor John Tory’s SmartTrack plan disappeared under the weight of 35 contrary votes and the unfortunate resurrection of the Rob Ford horror show.

The downtown leftist was duly respectful, even going so far as to call SmartTrack “brilliant.” But let’s not risk the best of it, he advised, by continuing to pretend the controversial stretch along Eglinton West is even remotely feasible.

With the new Ford circus in full swing, council bet $1.65 million — the cost of studying the Eglinton West stretch — that he was wrong. But he isn’t. The question today is how much more it will cost before that becomes obvious.

In fact, it was obvious the moment Tory, as candidate, unveiled SmartTrack. His plan used existing GO tracks everywhere except in the west, where it proposed to build a new heavy-rail “surface subway” running merrily alongside Eglinton deep into Mississauga. The problem: that right-of-way no longer exists.

The SmartTrack planners, it seems, were too busy with their coloured markers to visit Etobicoke, where they would have seen all kinds of new homes and condos being built along the corridor their outdated maps encouraged them to appropriate.

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The deep green boulevard that for so long bordered the northern edge of Eglinton between the Humber River and Highway 427 was created originally to accommodate the (mercifully) unbuilt Richview Expressway. And as the SmartTrackers knew, it was ripe for a surface subway. But what they didn’t know is that the Ford council had declared it surplus and Build Toronto has been carving it up and selling it off ever since.

The result of this revelation during the election was great sport for reporters and Tory’s opponents, who fairly estimated that tunnelling Eglinton would add untold millions to the SmartTrack budget. But all to no avail, because the citizenry had made up its collective mind. SmartTrack was visionary and contrary facts small-minded.

But now the facts are fighting back. In addition to the daunting prospect of tunnelling the proposed new line, they focus on the Herculean engineering required to attach it to the rest of the system at Mount Dennis. Failed mayoral candidates Olivia Chow and Doug Ford may have gotten nowhere with their criticisms of the plan during the campaign, but everything they said about it — always focusing on Eglinton West — was true.

So far, council has only spent $1.65-million on the project of reconciling a slapdash election promise with reality. But it is already clear that tunnelling a new subway to Mississauga will explode Tory’s promise to deliver SmartTrack within seven years at a budget price of $8 billion. And all the while there will be an affordable, effective, fully designed and pre-approved alternative just waiting to go.

The reason council moved to sell off the Richview corridor in the first place is that it had just approved a plan to run a light-rail line along Eglinton West as part of its Transit City program. Politics subsequently arrested the planned westward progress of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT at Mount Dennis, but there is no reason for it not to continue as planned. Even the environmental assessment is complete.

An LRT built as planned along Eglinton West would accomplish almost everything SmartTrack promises at a small fraction of the cost and with minimum (if any) hassle. And it could easily be completed within Tory’s self-imposed seven-year limit.

Perhaps the saddest aspect of the current Eglinton rail-traffic jam is that it could stall the entire SmartTrack initiative. Conceived as an in-city enhancement of the province’s GO network, SmartTrack really does live up to its name. It’s also brilliant politically, because the province will do most of the work of electrifying the corridor while the city claims ownership of the result — a partnership deal Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has embraced gladly.

Provincial partnership also promises the possibility at least of credible financing for SmartTrack — the lack of which is another giant hole in the current plan.

Today, however, Eglinton stands as its most glaring flaw. One can only hope that the cost of ignoring that — and saving the new mayor’s face with ongoing studies and assessments — will remain in the low millions.

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